Jeff Weintraub

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Michael Young - Middle East Studies in the U.S. (Reason)

Field of BattleA Frenchman fries Middle East studies in the U.S.Michael Young

Reason contributing editor Michael Young is opinion editor at the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut.

As 2004 comes to a crashing halt, one of the groups that, arguably, most deserves to fly through the windshield is the Middle East academic priesthood in the United States. Reeling from tsunamis of infighting, the angry community recently received a Christmas rebuke from French scholar Gilles Kepel on the opinion page of the Financial Times of London.

Kepel wrote, "Middle East studies faculties across America are bogged down in political infighting, waging Internet offensives that from a scholarly perspective seem shallow and petty. This battle, over the 'right' and 'wrong' approaches to teaching the region's politics, history and culture, has already caused considerable damage to academia and is now jeopardizing U.S. ability to decipher a complex area in which America is deeply engaged."

One can disagree with Kepel: Scholars have always been shallow and petty. Internet offensives are merely a technologically proficient variation on an ancient theme. However, he is on the money in warning of two things: America is today in desperate need of Middle East expertise, and very little has been forthcoming—at least outside partisan think-tanks that "have agendas, be they political, cultural or religious [so are unsuitable] for scholarship and pursuit of knowledge." And this self-inflicted marginalization of Middle East studies has encouraged the government to home in on a discipline it mostly distrusts.

Ideology has indeed rent the academy. The more obvious divide is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but the most important split today is over interpretation of American behavior in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq. At a more profound level, though, the quarrel is over how the West supposedly regards the East, and whether or when it has dominated and exploited it and indeed interpreted and studied it for those ends. That said, Kepel is not staking out a position in the dispute: he is equally bothered by strident "pro-Arabs" and "pro-Israelis", by those intolerantly on the left and on the right.

An essential text to follow the furious clash of mortarboards is Martin Kramer'sIvory Towers on Sand, a pamphlet written in 2001, after the 9/11 attacks, which seeks to explain why Middle East studies have failed in America. (For another view, a critic of Kramer, Zachary Lockman of New York University, penned a loosely parallel book on the Orientalist debate, of which more below). Kramer, an Israeli-American, is a bogeyman for those in Middle East academia who sympathize with the Palestinians, but more importantly who subscribe to the view that the United States is defined by neo-colonial ambitions in the Arab world.

In his book, Kramer identified what he saw as several problems in the field: overt politicization; the unwillingness of many scholars before 9/11 to examine terrorism, as that didn't fit into a dominant paradigm depicting the Arab world as a region worthy of empathy due to its colonial and post-colonial subjugation; the misuse of government funds earmarked for language training by Middle East studies centers so they could advance more ideological programs, all grafted onto a reluctance to collaborate with the U.S. government; and, finally, too eager a readiness to embrace the teachings of the late Columbia literature professor Edward Said, whose 1978 book Orientalism provided the template explaining the "structures" of Western control over the Middle East, particularly through scholarship, which many in the field have embraced as a seminal statement of their own beliefs. (Charles Paul Freund wrote a postmortem of the Orientalist critique in the December 2001 issue of Reason.)

One might debate the sweep of Kramer's characterizations (many Middle East scholars simply don't work on contemporary affairs), but Kepel does agree with an essential tenet of his argument: The Middle East studies field has, since the 1980s, tended to be broadly divided between "Saidians" and "Lewisians" (for the Princeton professor Bernard Lewis, who has generally considered Western influence in the Middle East something positive).

This may be oversimplifying the many strands of a complex field, but it is undeniable that the sharpest dividing line in Middle East studies is that delineating where one stands on the substance of Western power and its historical impact on what Said so sweepingly referred to as "the Orient." The fact that the largest collection of Middle East scholars in the United States, the Middle East Studies Association, was recently offered a choice for president between two men tending to subscribe to the post-colonial critique, showed that the consensus lies among the Saidians (the winner was the University of Michigan's Juan Cole, who maintains a blog that has of late become a lightning rod in cyberspace).

One can deride the suffocating tendency to contemplate the Middle East through an all-embracing prism of Western dominance, but in absolute terms the methodology is as legitimate as any other. The real question, however, is how this predisposes many in the field when it comes time to impart their expertise to the U.S. government, and influence policy. After all, if Washington is a new Rome, or some vaguely lesser edifice with global influence, then post-colonial scholars must surely consider collaboration with it as participation in an imperial or hegemonic venture. And if that's the case, then how will the modern Middle East studies field ultimately avoid isolating itself from the world of decision-making, where significance is best measured?

Recently, a friend of mine, Princeton's Michael Scott Doran, was the subject of a ruckus at his university. He is up for tenureship next year at the Near East Studies (NES) department, which has provoked a gnashing of teeth in other departments, namely History. Doran, who has written several much-publicized articles (including one on Saudi Arabia for Foreign Affairs magazine in its January/February 2004 issue), makes no bones about being politically to the right, and has consulted for the U.S. government. Those dissing Doran say the problem is his scholarship; Doran says his detractors dislike his politics. Princeton emeritus professor L. Carl Brown, who doesn't share Doran's views, nevertheless agrees with him: "I certainly buy the argument that the people attacking [Columbia University professor] Joseph Massad and Mike Doran—quite a different bunch—are attacking them because of their politics. There's no denying that."

The point is, however, that Doran wouldn't be a target for sour Princetonian dons if he were a right-wing nonentity. He is seen as a threat precisely because he has influence, and is talented enough to push his ideas forward. Instead of imitating him, and perhaps putting their own thoughts on policy tables, Doran's critics have chosen the far less demanding path of hitting him on the tenureship issue. As one history professor put it to the Daily Princetonian: "We don't want him... [In the future, are] we going to be mutually supportive or are they [NES] going to be antagonistic [by offering him tenureship]?"

In a short book, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East (which is reviewed in the January 2005 issue of Reason), Columbia University historian Rashid Khalidi blamed many in Middle East academia who "have not learned how, or tried seriously, to speak clearly to broader audiences, who disdain the difficult process of synthesis and clarification that is a necessary part of communicating to the general public about complex subjects, and who are rarely institutionally rewarded for trying to do so."

Khalidi, who is very much a Saidian (though he would probably frown on being so pigeonholed), is right, but also offered a glass only half full—or empty. The real issue is whether his brethren can also speak to those in authority in a way that is convincing. This need not mean succumbing to the decision-makers, but, rather, providing them persuasively with informed choices. Right after the above passage, Khalidi fell back on a familiar lament that the reason many academics didn't express themselves is a "pervasive atmosphere of intimidation and fear" in the U.S. That's baloney: Khalidi's ideological soul mates permeate American Middle East academia, and are on talk shows or in newspapers all the time. The problem is that their institutional security often bangs up against their insecurities—in fact bald hostility—toward American power.

For example, it is a striking feature of Khalidi's own book that he barely mentions the 9/11 attacks as a possible motivator for U.S. behavior in the Middle East in the past two years. By ignoring how that decisive event shaped American attitudes he exposes his own distance from the mainstream, preferring to retreat to more familiar topography where, as his title implies, he can explain the Bush administration's behavior in Afghanistan and Iraq solely as imperial revivification.

Kepel's damning conclusion—that the self-immolation of the Middle East studies field invites the government to fill the vacuum—is one that those on all sides of the ideological divide should ponder. A field of study can grow thanks to national security concerns (look at Soviet or Chinese studies); it can even benefit, as Middle East studies centers have, from government funding. But to buy true autonomy from the state, Middle East program managers must make their efforts more practical and credible, fulfill their end of the bargain if state funds are passed on to them, and, most significantly, look for ever more private funding for their pursuits.

On the other hand, if the state is paying for programs, it should be allowed to specify its interests. By self-consciously distancing themselves from the state, even as they take its money, many Middle East specialists are committing a double fault: they are becoming irrelevant, and they are encouraging the government to ensure that they remain so.

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Is Iran approaching its 1989? (June 2003)

The discussion below (from June 19, 2003) offers some background to my recent post The Iranian Dubcek bows out. I was responding in part to an item by Kieran Healy, "What's happening in Iran?", posted on the "Crooked Timber" group weblog. Taking off from Theda Skocpol's analysis of social revolutions, Healy asked:

So, I want to know how the Iranian state is doing and how muchintra-elite conflict there is.

I responded, in part:

Well, for a start, for almost a decade now the Iranian regime hasbeen marked by an explicit situation of dual power (as a result of apeculiar constitutional structure that is half-representative andhalf-theocratic). In many respects, the most obvious parallels lie inBrezhnevist East/Central Europe during the last stages ofpost-revolutionary disillusionment. And in some ways the closest parallelis to Poland in the 1970s and 1980s, in the sense that a party-stateapparatus that controls the instruments of repression, military force,and everyday administration, but whose legitimacy is massively eroded,confronts the opposition of a politically mobilized majority of thepopulation. But it's as though Solidarity had been winning repeated andoverwhelming elections to the Polish parliament all through the 1980s,only to find itself unable to pass any legislation. Given theexceptional moral power of elections in modern politics (even the mostbrutal dictatorships go to the trouble of faking plebiscites), this putsa big strain on the legitimacy of the regime.

On the other hand, insome ways Khatami and the political forces he represents are analogousto Dubcek and the other Communist Party reformers of the Prague Spring,representing the last hopes of reform "within the system." Even a fewyears ago, Khatami was already looking as though he was going to play the historical role of the Iranian Dubcek all the way, ending by beingdefeated and discredited. Now this is pretty certain. As a number ofanalysts have pointed out, increasing numbers of Iranians are gettingdisillusioned with Khatami and the Islamist-reform politics herepresents, as it becomes ever more clear that the hardliners areunwilling to give the reformers an inch.

So the deadlock is moving Iranian politics fairly rapidly from a more "Czech" to a more "Polish" situation, and from the 1970s tothe 1980s. One element is still missing--namely, a post-Khatami organizing framework (like the Solidarity trade union) to mobilize"society" in a direct, non-reformist confrontation with the hard-liners.But (unlike many other countries in the area) Iranian society has a large number of politicians, activists, journalists, intellectuals and others with political experience who can play key roles in sucha process, and also a voting public with political experience.

The answer to your question thus depends, in part, on what you meanby the "elite." From a larger perspective, "intra-elite" conflict inIran is massive, open, and even semi-institutionalized. Differentelites even control different institutions, and different bases ofpolitical power, to a quite exceptional extent. "Intra-elite conflicts"are intense and, apparently, irreconcilable. "Crisis within the state"?Sure.

But, as we all know (or should know), in cases like this themeanings of "state" and "elite" are ambiguous, both theoretically andpractically. From a narrower point of view, your question has to dowith the unity and effectiveness of one specific elite, the hard-line theocratic apparatus and its clients & supporters. This is moreuncertain. On the face of it, they seem to be less cynical and demoralized than their Brezhnevite CP counterparts, probably more determined and less fragile. On the other hand, whereas Khomeini wouldot have hesitated to crush these recent disturbances with openbrutality (and with real popular support), the curent rulers areclearly much more hesitant to resort to massive bloodshed. The reasonsfor this are undoubtedly complex, and do not necessarily indicate thatthey doubt the ultimate effectiveness of the repressive apparatus ifthey unleash it; but any historical sociologist of revolutions willrecognize that this kind of hesitation is significant. And it's alsosignificant how many former activists of the Khomeini revolution (laymenand even clerics) have become activists of the political opposition.

My impression is that it's very unlikely that the Iranian regime isabout to experience a big-bang revolutionary upheaval (if only becauseIranians don't want to live through another massive revolution--the memories of the last one are too vivid). But it has clearly entered into a period of prolonged and almost certainly deepening crisis. On thing is for sure: The present dual-power situation can't remain stablemuch longer. Something has to give. Whether this leads to violent repression, to revolution, or to some kind of political "transition"will depend, to a great extent, on how the hard-liners play their cards.So far, they have been building up the conditions for an explosion.

The Iranian Dubcek bows out (BBC News)

A visibly-shaken Khatami defended his record and criticised the powerful hardliners who have closed newspapers and jailed dissidents.He asked students to stop heckling and accused his critics of intolerance.Students were once some of President Khatami's strongest supporters. But they now accuse him of failing to stand up to the conservatives who won parliamentary elections in February.Correspondents say Mr Khatami is concluding his second and final term in office as a virtual lame duck - having once been seen a force for great change in the Islamic republic. [....]"There is no Third World country where the students can talk to their president and criticise the government as you do now."I really believe in this system and the revolution and that this system can be developed from within," he is quoted as saying.

Khatami may still believe that, but at this point I suspect that very few other Iranians still agree with him. In retrospect, the Khatami experiment, beginning in 1997, will almost certainly be seen as the last shot at reforming and democratizing the system from within (like the Prague Spring of 1968). It was tried, and it failed.

What happens next is less clear. Like the eastern European regimes during the 1980s, the Iranian regime seems to have decisively lost its legitimacy and support among the great majority of Iranians. But historical analogies are rarely exact. By the 1980s, the eastern European elites (with some very rare exceptions) didn't really believe in the system either, had become cynical and demoralized, and collapsed fairly rapidly when they were challenged. Unlike those regimes, the Iranian regime still commands the loyalty of a sizable hard core who are committed to it from genuine ideological belief and/or from materialistic motives, and who seem willing to use as much violence as it takes to crush opposition. I suspect this means that Iran can look forward to an indefinite period of very unstable political equilibrium, probably marked by increasing repression as well as potentially dangerous efforts by the ruling elite to build up support through nuclear brinksmanship and other types of foreign-policy adventurism.

Or maybe not. After all, when Solidarity was suppressed in Poland in 1981, almost no sane person imagined that the whole edifice of eastern European post-Stalinist state socialism would come crashing down a decade later. History is unpredictable. And Iran remains one of the very few countries in the Middle East where, if the current regime collapsed tomorrow, it's plausible that it would NOT be replaced with an even worse regime. In fact, I think we could still see an Iranian 1989 ... sometime down the road

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami came to power amidst promises of reform.

But with many of his initiatives foundering on conservative resistance, he has looked increasingly embattled.

When Iran's Council of Guardians barred hundreds of reformists from standing in the February 2004 parliamentary elections, the president backed the reformists.

"I do not agree with the disqualifications. We shall go through legal channels to prevent this sort of thing from happening," he said on Iranian TV.

The son of a respected ayatollah, Mohammad Khatami was born in central Yazd Province in 1943.

His previous posts included two terms as minister of culture and Islamic guidance, cultural adviser to his predecessor, former President Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, and head of Iran's National Library.

He won a landslide victory in the 1997 presidential election. His campaign pledges included greater freedom of expression, as well as measures to tackle unemployment and boost privatisation.

His victory was attributed largely to support from young people and women, impressed by his vision of "religious democracy".

President Khatami's first term ushered in some liberalisation, exemplified by a renaissance of the print media and improved relations with states inside and outside the region.

In January 1998 he held out the prospect of rapprochement with the United States, by addressing the American nation on CNN to stress that Iran had "no hostility" towards them.

In September 1998, the president addressed the UN General Assembly to propose that it declare 2001 the year of "Dialogue among Civilisations". The proposal, aimed at fostering global tolerance, was duly adopted.

Calls to resign

Yet his attempt to implement "Islamic democracy" at home found itself blocked by the country's conservative institutions. The initial blossoming of the media was followed by newspaper closures and the arrest of journalists.

Despite these setbacks and economic woes compounded by the fall in the oil price, President Khatami went on to win a second term in 2001. Though the turnout was lower than in 1997, his percentage of the vote rose.

Frustrated by the obstacles to his reforms, he submitted a bill aimed at boosting presidential power, and another curbing the role of the Guardian Council, which has to approve all legislation.

The bills were overwhelmingly approved by parliament in April 2003, but rejected by the Council as unconstitutional in May. Reformist MPs have suggested that the bills be put to a referendum - or that the president resign in protest.

In May 2003 an open letter signed by 153 deputies was read out in parliament, urging conservatives to give way to reforms. Otherwise, the letter says, Iran could face the same fate as Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

When students, once the president's natural constituency, took to the streets in June 2003 over the slow pace of reform, they called for his resignation along with that of hardliners.

In televised remarks, he defended the students' action.

"Our students have the right to stage their protests and, fortunately, they have demonstrated their maturity in so doing," he said.

But he also reacted to President Bush's comment that the protests showed Iranians wanted freedom with a warning:

"We will not allow any foreigner to interfere in our destiny."

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BBC Monitoring , based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Stephen Zunes - Why western progressives should support Ukrainian democracy

Frankly, it still strikes me as odd that this position should seem at all problematic (though, unfortunately, it's not totally surprising). As Norman Geras indicates, this piece by Zunes is timely and (with a few exceptions) pretty well argued.

Ukrainian democracy

Ukrainians are voting again today. In that connection, see the piece here by Professor Stephen Zunes (despite some of the standard tropes it contains about current US foreign policy and the war in Iraq). Zunes argues that a section of the US left has been mistaken in failing to support the pro-democracy movement in Ukraine. (Hat tip: Michael Pugliese.)

Why Progressives Must Embrace the Ukrainian Pro-Democracy Movement

By Stephen Zunes

Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco and the Middle East editor for Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org). He is the principal editor of Nonviolent Social Movements (Blackwell Publishers, 1999).

Some elements of the American left have committed a grievous error, both morally and strategically, in their failure to enthusiastically support the momentous pro-democracy movement in the Ukraine.

After more than three centuries of subjugation under Russian rule—first under the czars and then under the communists—followed by a dozen years of independence under corrupt and autocratic rule, the Ukrainian people appear to be on the verge of a new era of freedom. This development is significant, given that—with a population and land mass comparable to France, rich in minerals, fertile farmland, and modern industry—a democratic Ukraine could become a pivotal, independent player in European and international affairs.

But rather than embracing this inspiring triumph of the human spirit against authoritarianism and repression, much of the left media has focused instead upon the opposition’s shortcomings and on the double standards and questionable motivations of the Bush administration’s support for the movement. Although these concerns are not without merit, they miss the fact that we are witnessing one of the most notable popular democratic uprisings in history. Furthermore, the left’s lukewarm response has given both the right and the mainstream media an opportunity to brand the entire progressive community with allegations that we oppose freedom and democracy.

Typically, the arguments on the left are that:

• The Bush administration has poured in millions of dollars to support the Ukrainian opposition.

First of all, U.S. financial support—which has flowed primarily through reputable nongovernmental organizations—pales in comparison to support from Western European democracies. Most U.S. financial backing for the democratic Ukrainian opposition has come through private foundations, including those funded by billionaire George Soros, the Hungarian exile who also donated millions of dollars to the unsuccessful effort to defeat George W. Bush.

Secondly, by overemphasizing Washington’s role in the pro-democracy movement, the left is playing right into the hands of the neoconservatives, who are also exaggerating the U.S. role in order to bolster their claim that global democracy can only be advanced through American leadership.

Financial support from Western sources—which has enabled the Ukrainian opposition to purchase computers and fax machines, pay expenses, and hire consultants—has undoubtedly been useful in the movement’s challenge to the autocratic regime in Kiev. Such assistance, however, does not precipitate a liberal democratic revolution any more than Soviet financial and material support for leftist movements in the Third World provoked socialist revolution during the Cold War. As Marxists have long recognized, revolutions are the result of specific objective conditions. Indeed, no amount of money could force hundreds of thousands of people to leave their jobs, homes, schools, and families to face down heavily armed police and camp out in the bitter cold for weeks. Such boldness can only be fueled by strong, heart-felt motivations.

• Washington’s support for the Ukrainian opposition and the movement’s sympathetic portrayal in the mainstream U.S. media is part of a broader effort to weaken Russian influence and enable the Ukraine to liberalize its economy, become part of the European Union, and join NATO.

Although the Bush administration’s support for the Ukrainian opposition in this former Soviet republic is not really about democracy, the same could be said regarding U.S. support for the opposition movement in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which, in a similar nonviolent uprising following a fraudulent election, ousted a pro-Russian government in 2003. By contrast, when the Aliyev administration rigged the 2003 election in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, the Bush White House raised no objections, since Azerbaijan is considered an important U.S. ally. The Bush administration has also been a major backer of the repressive Karimov dictatorship in the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, which has allowed the U.S. military basing rights and is considered an ally in “the war on terrorism.”

The insinuation that a democratic Ukraine would somehow be beholden to American interests, however, is ludicrous. The strong sense of nationalism resulting from centuries of subjugation by the Russian, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Polish, and Lithuanian empires— combined with the country’s large industrial capacity and generous natural resources—is indicative that a democratic Ukraine would be able to put its own national interests first.

Among the popular criticisms directed at the incumbent president, Leonid Kuchma, have been his call for the Ukraine to join NATO and, especially, his decision to deploy Ukrainian forces in Iraq. By contrast, opposition presidential candidate Victor Yushchenko has pledged—should he be allowed to take office—to immediately withdraw Ukrainian forces from Iraq.

Accepting U.S. support does not guarantee subservience to U.S. interests. The United States supported the 2000 nonviolent pro-democracy movement in Serbia, which swept the dictator and war criminal Slobodan Milosevic from power. Yet opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica, who was elected as Yugoslavia’s new president, had been an outspoken opponent of the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against his country and, since coming to office, has hardly acted like an American puppet.

As Nick Paton, writing on the Ukrainian uprising for the British newspaper The Guardian, observed, “This protest is no longer about America’s or Russia’s candidate, but [is about] an end to the past 12 years of misrule.” It is an eruption of civil society whereby significant sectors of the Ukrainian population are, according to Paton, “for the first time, realizing how they could one day have a government whose main interest is not stealing from state coffers and protecting favored oligarchs, but actually representing the people who elected them. For most people, this is a first taste of real self-determination.”

American progressives need to be emphasizing that this is how regime change ought to take place: not by foreign conquest but by the subjugated peoples themselves; not by bombs and bullets but by the far-greater power of nonviolence. We should be pleased that the Bush administration is actually embracing, albeit for suspect reasons, an authentic, grassroots democratic movement against an authoritarian regime. Instead of questioning U.S. support for Ukrainian democrats, progressives must seize this opportunity to emphasize the need for the United States to champion nonviolent democratic movements everywhere and to end U.S. backing for autocratic regimes and occupation armies that suppress such movements.

• The vote fraud in November’s Ukrainian election, which denied Yushchenko his victory, was no different than the vote fraud in the U.S. election that same month, which denied John Kerry his victory; in both cases, there was a major discrepancy between the exit polls and the official count.

The exit polls in the United States were off by less than 2%. This discrepancy can largely be explained by exit pollsters’ acknowledged oversampling of women voters, new rules that limit nonvoters’ proximity to polling places, and the apparent higher level of interview cooperation by Kerry supporters than by Bush advocates. The difference between exit polls and the official count in the Ukraine, by contrast, was more than 14%, and considerable evidence suggests that the Kiev government tampered with the results. For example, in the Donestk region, officials claimed that Yushchenko won less than 3% of the vote. International observers also reported widespread intimidation of election monitors, ballot stuffing, multiple voting, and government pressuring of voters.

Of course, voting fraud in the Ukraine does not excuse illegal behavior by supporters of the Bush campaign. All suspicious U.S. electoral activities also need to be investigated thoroughly. However, rectifying such irregularities would not likely make enough difference in Florida or Ohio to hand Kerry an Electoral College victory.

And, despite the many abuses of the Bush administration, Americans live in a far more open society than do Ukrainians under President Kuchma. The state-controlled Ukrainian media covered only the campaigns of pro-government parties. Government thugs often disrupted the campaign activities of the opposition parties and engaged in numerous acts of violence, including the 2002 murder of Mykota Shkribliak, a leading opposition politician. Journalists who reported on corruption or criticized government policies were subjected to particularly serious harassment and violence, such as the 2000 murder of prominent independent journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, which has been linked to Kuchma. The judiciary is notoriously inefficient and subject to corruption; torture is widespread. And, of course, there was the poisoning of Yushchenko himself. Despite the frightening abuses of power by the Bush administration, it is a gross exaggeration to imply that the rulers in Kiev are no worse; to do so undermines the efforts of those working for human rights and accountable government in both countries.

• Opposition leader Victor Yushchenko, whose stolen presidential victory in November prompted the uprising, is backed by elements linked to the crooked cabal of business leaders who enriched themselves during the privatization of nationalized industries in the 1990s; Yushchenko himself served for a time as prime minister under the corrupt, outgoing President Leonid Kuchma. Yushchenko also has the backing of right-wing ultranationalists, particularly in the western part of the country, some of whom have ties with anti-Semitic elements and former Nazi collaborators.

Antipathy for the country’s pro-Russian political establishment runs deep in the Ukraine and spans the political spectrum. This potpourri includes some corrupt and even fascistic elements, but they are a small minority of those who have rallied to form the opposition, which consists primarily of liberal democrats. Other opponents of the current autocratic regime include democratic socialists, Greens, and others on the left who recognize that although Yushchenko may not be particularly progressive politically or capable of completely cleaning up the system, his election is currently the best hope for establishing a more open and accountable government.

Free elections and political liberty do not guarantee a progressive government or a just society. However, without individual liberties and accountable government, building a just society becomes virtually impossible. Democracy affords a political opening whereby a democratic left stands a chance of challenging the excesses of national and global capitalism; of empowering local communities; of openly defending the rights of women, minorities, and the poor; and of eventually gaining power. Few in the Latin American left, for example, would argue that despite the failure of democratic governance to alter the continent’s underlying social end economic inequality, things were somehow better under the U.S.-backed military dictatorships that ruled those nations for decades. Political and civil rights do not automatic-ally lead to social and economic equality, but such equality will be far more difficult to achieve without the establishment of democratic institutions and the guaranteed protection of individual liberties.

The pro-democracy movement in the Ukraine is destined to emerge victorious and has captured the popular imagination of millions of people in the United States and around the world. Perhaps the understandable cynicism that so many American progressives are experiencing at this point in history makes it difficult for many of us to fully appreciate such a hopeful development, especially when it is supported by those who are responsible for so much violence and injustice both at home and abroad. But despite the double standards and cynical opportunism of the Bush administration, let’s not deny ourselves this occasion to celebrate an incipient peoples’ victory. May it inspire us to redouble our efforts to support other struggles for freedom and justice both at home and abroad.---------

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Darfur - "Who Will Save the Children Now?" (Scotsman)

This year-end Darfur update is worth reading in full. But here are some highlights.

Four aid workers dead, two raped, all in the space of two months. Save the Children [UK] has given up. It is pulling out of the ravaged Sudanese region of Darfur.

Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF), too, yesterday revealed that one of its members of staff had been targeted and killed in an area into which Sudanese government forces had advanced. A quarter of a million people are at immediate risk of losing their lives as a result of the Save the Children pull-out. The death toll is now into six figures and rising. Everyone talks of an imminent explosion of violence.

Yesterday’s quote of the day on the United Nations website for Kofi Annan, its secretary general, said this: "If 2003 was a year of deep division, and 2004 has been a time of sober reflection, 2005 must be a year of bold action."

But it is all too late. Darfur has descended into genocide, and there is no longer anyone who is prepared to save it.

The UN Security Council won’t help: its members are hopelessly divided. China and its friends won’t countenance any action against the source of so much oil. The African Union, Darfur’s only hope, has so far managed to get only 900 troops into the region, when even the most optimistic analysts agreed that 3,000 would struggle to do the job.

So this is where we now stand. [....]

Save the Children pulls no punches. It blames the UN Security Council for failing to back its threats with action.

"What the UN can do depends on what its members will let it do," said Mr Caldwell.

"The security council has a whole set of vested interests, commercial and political. The security council should feel very embarrassed that they have been unable to assemble the will to deal with this humanitarian situation."

Other agencies have decided to stay, but there is little optimism. Petrana Ford, of MSF, said they were receiving reports that one of their staff had been killed near Labado in south Darfur, an area into which Sudanese forces had recently advanced to take on the rebels who have also been targeting aid workers.

"There is a feeling that things are getting really messy," she said. "It is not looking good, it is not looking good at all."

Oxfam, whose country director was kicked out by the government but whose staff are continuing to work in Darfur, could summon up no more enthusiasm. "The situation is deteriorating, things are already very bad and there is going to be an even worse situation over Christmas," said Brendan Cox, its spokesman.

Fighting in the vast western region has displaced at least 1.6 million people - some estimates now put it above two million - and killed tens of thousands since rebels took up arms there in early 2003 against government forces and Arab militias known as Janjaweed. Save the Children has estimated that up to 300,000 have died. [....]

And it gets worse. The UN said yesterday that it was trying urgently to overcome a dire water shortage in eastern Chad which could undermine efforts to cope with more refugees from the Darfur region.

Yet the best the UN can do is to call on all sides to stop fighting. It has no plans to intervene directly. The UN and its partners voiced concern over the recent fighting in breach of an April ceasefire agreement and the Abuja Protocols. They also expressed disquiet at the scale and nature of the military offensive by the government to "clear" the roads, and its impact on civilians.

What it will not do is impose a no-fly zone, or send troops in blue helmets to force the sides to the negotiating table.

There is a film out now, Hotel Rwanda, about how a hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagin, saved 1,268 people during the 1994 genocide in that country. There is a scene in it in which the UN commander tells Mr Rusesabagin that no help will come. "We think you’re dirt, Paul," he says. "You’re an African. They’re not going to stop the slaughter."

It is happening again.

I hope that these prognoses turn out to be too pessimistic. But right now they don't look implausible.

Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF), too, yesterday revealed that one of its members of staff had been targeted and killed in an area into which Sudanese government forces had advanced. A quarter of a million people are at immediate risk of losing their lives as a result of the Save the Children pull-out. The death toll is now into six figures and rising. Everyone talks of an imminent explosion of violence.

Yesterday’s quote of the day on the United Nations website for Kofi Annan, its secretary general, said this: "If 2003 was a year of deep division, and 2004 has been a time of sober reflection, 2005 must be a year of bold action."

But it is all too late. Darfur has descended into genocide, and there is no longer anyone who is prepared to save it.

The UN Security Council won’t help: its members are hopelessly divided. China and its friends won’t countenance any action against the source of so much oil. The African Union, Darfur’s only hope, has so far managed to get only 900 troops into the region, when even the most optimistic analysts agreed that 3,000 would struggle to do the job.

So this is where we now stand. On 10 October, Rafe Bullick, from Edinburgh, and Nourredine Issa al-Tayeb, his Sudanese colleague, were killed by a landmine in North Darfur. The African Union, attempting to monitor what remains of any ceasefires in Darfur, reports that two women were raped when a Save the Children convoy was attacked by armed militiamen on the road from Kas to Nyala on 5 December. The charity says the women were local helpers. MSF yesterday confirmed that one of its workers had been killed in south Darfur. Initial reports said five dead. Save the Children are still investigating.

This is the extent of the anger of those who have watched Darfur descend into bloody anarchy. Frustrated by the inaction of the UN Security Council, Mr Annan laid it on the line: "Ultimately, the security council must assume its responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security."

His office went further: it was time for action, they said. Marie Okabe, a UN spokeswoman, said that the security council had spoken in favour of African Union intervention, but had failed to back it with action.

"It has repeatedly called for members to do that. If the security council is not sending troops it is because it does not have the will to do that," she said.

A UN mission is due to report back next month on whether the situation in Darfur is genocide. The US Congress has already decided it is: others have followed suit. Britain remains sitting on the fence.

But Save the Children has seen enough. Its director of international operations, Ken Caldwell, yesterday said that a security review conducted after the killings of its staff had concluded that the situation was getting inexorably worse, and that there was no option but to pull out, leaving 250,000 to fend for themselves. Nearly a quarter of children under five were suffering from malnutrition, he said. He offered little hope for those in peril.

"This is the worst humanitarian disaster in the world. There are two million people in dire humanitarian need in Darfur. Our ability to reach them is declining," he said.

"We cannot see any imminent prospects of being able to operate there in safety. We greatly regret it, but we can’t operate there. There have been a series of incidents and we seem to have borne the brunt of it. That understandably focuses the mind."

The World Food Programme, he said, was now only able to reach half of those in need. With the pull-out of Save the Children, people would be left without access to food aid, clinics and shelter. It was likely there would be major movements of people, but Chad, Sudan’s western neighbour, has already made it clear that a poor rainy season means it cannot sustain another large influx of refugees. In any case, Mr Caldwell said, the weakest ones, the young and the old, would not be able to make that journey.

"It is a horrendous situation for about one million children. We see no current trends that would lead to an end to this," he said.

"That it has reached this state is due to the collective failure of the international community. The international community needs to summon up the political will to do something about it. It is outrageous that after all these weeks since the AU was asked to scale-up its operations [by the UN] there are only 900 AU [soldiers] there."

Save the Children pulls no punches. It blames the UN Security Council for failing to back its threats with action.

"What the UN can do depends on what its members will let it do," said Mr Caldwell.

"The security council has a whole set of vested interests, commercial and political. The security council should feel very embarrassed that they have been unable to assemble the will to deal with this humanitarian situation."

Other agencies have decided to stay, but there is little optimism. Petrana Ford, of MSF, said they were receiving reports that one of their staff had been killed near Labado in south Darfur, an area into which Sudanese forces had recently advanced to take on the rebels who have also been targeting aid workers.

"There is a feeling that things are getting really messy," she said. "It is not looking good, it is not looking good at all."

Oxfam, whose country director was kicked out by the government but whose staff are continuing to work in Darfur, could summon up no more enthusiasm. "The situation is deteriorating, things are already very bad and there is going to be an even worse situation over Christmas," said Brendan Cox, its spokesman.

Fighting in the vast western region has displaced at least 1.6 million people - some estimates now put it above two million - and killed tens of thousands since rebels took up arms there in early 2003 against government forces and Arab militias known as Janjaweed. Save the Children has estimated that up to 300,000 have died.

But while the African Union is sponsoring peace talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja, the main rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), walked out last week, accusing the government of launching fresh assaults.

"The talks have deadlocked because we are not moving anywhere. The only option left is for the AU to take the matter to the UN Security Council because it seems that is the only body that can handle the situation now," said Ahmed Adam, a JEM spokesman.

But the AU spokesman, Assane Ba, said there were no immediate plans to report the Darfur situation to the Security Council.

The AU has warned the region is a ticking bomb with vast quantities of arms and ammunition flooding in.

And it gets worse. The UN said yesterday that it was trying urgently to overcome a dire water shortage in eastern Chad which could undermine efforts to cope with more refugees from the Darfur region.

Yet the best the UN can do is to call on all sides to stop fighting. It has no plans to intervene directly. The UN and its partners voiced concern over the recent fighting in breach of an April ceasefire agreement and the Abuja Protocols. They also expressed disquiet at the scale and nature of the military offensive by the government to "clear" the roads, and its impact on civilians.

What it will not do is impose a no-fly zone, or send troops in blue helmets to force the sides to the negotiating table.

There is a film out now, Hotel Rwanda, about how a hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagin, saved 1,268 people during the 1994 genocide in that country. There is a scene in it in which the UN commander tells Mr Rusesabagin that no help will come. "We think you’re dirt, Paul," he says. "You’re an African. They’re not going to stop the slaughter."

Monday, December 20, 2004

Eric Reeves - Darfur Mortality Update (12/12/2004)

This piece comes from the website of Eric Reeves, a Smith College professor who has taken a leave of absence to focus on the Darfur crisis, and has turned himself into a widely recognized expert. He's one of the best informed, acute, and passionately engaged people currently writing about the Darfur atrocity (in a range of publications that have included the New York Times, Dissent, In These Times, the Nation, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and various newspapers outside the US--in addition to his website, which is an invaluable source of ongoing information).

Over the past year, Reeves has periodically attempted to estimate the mounting death toll in Darfur. This is his most recent effort. His basic conclusions are:

Building on nine previous assessments of global mortality in Darfur, the current assessment finds that approximately 370,000 have died since conflict erupted in February 2003, and that the current mortality rate has increased to approximately 35,000 per month, though this figure is poised to grow rapidly in light of food deficits forecast for early 2005, increasingly weakened populations that are only very partially served by current humanitarian operations, and accelerating violence that is severely curtailing humanitarian access and transport capacity. (Full text of the most recent previous mortality assessment [November16, 2004] is available at: Sudan Tribune)

In less than a month, the genocidal destruction in Darfur will be half that of the Rwandan genocide of 1994. In Darfur, however, genocidal ambitions have a much more expansive time-frame for human destruction. Indeed, there is nothing presently in view that suggests how genocide by attrition can be halted. Present humanitarian aid operations cannot address humanitarian need that continues to increase rapidly; nor can a conspicuously inadequate African Union monitoring presence meaningfully address the acute insecurity that is daily worsening. Resumed diplomatic negotiations in Abuja, Nigeria show no signs of forcing Khartoum to make any political concessions that might resolve the crisis.

The killing will not stop until there is a concerted international humanitarian intervention, with all necessary military support. Such intervention seems wholly without diplomatic or political support.

Monday, December 13, 2004

DARFUR MORTALITY UPDATE: December 12, 2004

Current data for total mortality from violence, malnutrition, and disease

Eric ReevesDecember 12, 2004

Building on nine previous assessments of global mortality in Darfur,the current assessment finds that approximately 370,000 have died sinceconflict erupted in February 2003, and that the current mortality ratehas increased to approximately 35,000 per month, though this figure ispoised to grow rapidly in light of food deficits forecast for early2005, increasingly weakened populations that are only very partiallyserved by current humanitarian operations, and accelerating violencethat is severely curtailing humanitarian access and transport capacity.(Full text of the most recent previous mortality assessment [November16, 2004] is available at Sudan Tribune)

In less than a month, the genocidal destruction in Darfur will be halfthat of the Rwandan genocide of 1994. In Darfur, however, genocidalambitions have a much more expansive time-frame for human destruction.Indeed, there is nothing presently in view that suggests how genocide byattrition can be halted. Present humanitarian aid operations cannotaddress humanitarian need that continues to increase rapidly; nor can aconspicuously inadequate African Union monitoring presence meaningfullyaddress the acute insecurity that is daily worsening. Resumeddiplomatic negotiations in Abuja, Nigeria show no signs of forcingKhartoum to make any political concessions that might resolve thecrisis.

The killing will not stop until there is a concerted internationalhumanitarian intervention, with all necessary military support. Suchintervention seems wholly without diplomatic or political support.

MILITARY AND SECURITY CONTEXT

Any assessment of current and prospective mortality rates in Darfurmust accept as context the very rapidly deteriorating security situationin the region. The primary cause at present is a massivelydisproportional military response by Khartoum, using all possiblepretexts for military assaults that may (or may not) relate to actionsby the Darfuri insurgents. This has had the effect of severelycurtailing humanitarian operations, even as humanitarian need continuesto grow. There are increasing numbers of "no-go" areas; humanitarianworkers continue to operate amidst intolerable security risks;humanitarian transport corridors are being shut down; camps fordisplaced persons continue to be sites for rape, torture, and killings;huge numbers of vulnerable civilians remain trapped in inaccessiblerural areas; and there are numerous credible reports of recentwidespread civilian displacement as a result of violence by Khartoum'sregular forces and its brutal Janjaweed allies.

Of particular note are fully substantiated reports of large-scaleaerial assaults by the Khartoum regime. These assaults, mainly by meansof Antonov bombers, come despite Khartoum's formal pledge to "refrainfrom conducting hostile military flights in and over the Darfur region"(clause 2 of the Security Protocol of November 9, 2004; signed in Abuja,Nigeria). What is most notable about Antonov bombing attacks is theirthoroughly indiscriminate nature: Antonovs are not true militaryaircraft, but rather retrofitted cargo planes from which high-explosiveanti-personnel bombs are rolled out the back cargo bay. They arenotoriously inaccurate and of highly limited value for true militarypurposes. But they are exquisitely effective tools for civiliandestruction and terror, as Khartoum has proved over many years insouthern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains.

That Khartoum is intent on indiscriminate civilian destruction bymilitary means is borne out by many other recent reports, including thefollowing from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jose LuisDiaz:

"As an example of the ongoing conflict [Diaz] cited the launching of 18mortars by Government [of Sudan] forces into the village of Masteri inWest Darfur in response to an attack from that region." (UN News Center,December 3, 2004)

Firing mortar rounds into a village such as Masteri, which has largeconcentrations of displaced persons (many poised to flee to Chad,according to the UN High Commission for Refugees), amounts to littlemore than indiscriminate civilian destruction, with the presence ofinsurgents a mere pretext.

Indeed, reports of extremely brutal military assaults on civilians---byboth Khartoum and the Janjaweed---have been authoritatively reported inall three administrative states of Darfur. The regime's strategy forcircumventing the terms of the November 9 Abuja "Security Protocol" isnow clear: using any military "provocation" (real or contrived) by theinsurgents as pretext, Khartoum will unleash massively disproportionalmilitary responses, and count on the inability of the internationalcommunity to articulate effectively how disproportional this responseis.

A telling sign of international behavior in this vein is reflected in acomment by UN Undersecretary for Political Affairs Kieran Prendergast inhis briefing of the UN Security Council on December 7, 2004:

"The [Sudan] Government's use of aerial bombing in retaliation [forinsurgency attacks], if confirmed, would also be in breach of the AbujaProtocols." (Statement to the UN Security Council, December 7, 2004)

"If confirmed...." But of course the use of aerial military assets byKhartoum was fully confirmed over a week before Prendergast spoke. TheNew York Times reported on African Union monitors taking photographs ofa bomb crater in the highly volatile Tawilla area of North Darfur onNovember 29, 2004:

"On Sunday morning [November 28, 2004], a team of nine African Unionmilitary observers, trailed by the first journalists to visit this town[Tawilla] since the attack last week, stared at the shallow crater thata government bomb had left in this now charred group of huts." (New YorkTimes [dateline: Tawilla], November 29, 2004 [filed November 28, 2004])

Another news correspondent reported from the Tawilla area on November28, 2004 that, "about a half mile east of Tawilla, a Knight Ridderreporter and photographer found four more [bomb] craters" (Knight Ridder[dateline: Tawilla], November 28, 2004). AU investigators wouldcertainly have also seen these craters.

Prendergast is evidently not interested in the inconvenient but fullyestablished fact that Khartoum has egregiously violated a key term ofthe Abuja Security Protocol. Indeed, Save the Children/UK had publiclyreported Khartoum's bombing in Tawilla at the time it occurred---yet aweek earlier (and because of this statement was targeted by Khartoum forharassment):

"Save the Children/UK said about 30 of its workers were forced to fleeon foot when a bomb landed about 50 metres from one of its feedingcentres in [Tawilla] town." (Reuters, November 23, 2004)

Mr. Prendergast had no need for further "confirmation" of Khartoum'sdeliberate, indiscriminate bombing attacks; rather, what was missing, asso often with UN political officials, was a willingness to tell thetruths that are known. Indeed, Amnesty International hadauthoritatively reported the day before Prendergast's comments:

"Two days later [November 28, 2004---i.e., two days after the abductionof 19 men by Khartoum's army and Khartoum-backed Janjaweed], theSudanese army and the Janjawid launched a massive raid on Adwa, whichwas already swollen by tens of thousands of people forced from theirhomes by previous Janjawid raids. An Antonov aircraft and twohelicopter gunships also bombed the town. Estimates of those killedrange from 90 to 140. [ ] Some 40,000 people are said to have fled tonearby areas. African Union monitors who came to investigate the attackthe following day also came under fire, apparently from the Janjawid."(Amnesty International press release, December 6, 2004; AI Index: AFR54/161/2004)

These are the inconvenient realities Prendergast chose to ignore inaddressing the Security Council. This unwillingness to speak honestlyabout Khartoum's actions in Darfur is part of an ongoing effort tocreate a factitious "moral equivalence" between the regime and theinsurgents, motivated in large part by what is transparently UNimpotence in responding meaningfully to the crisis, particularly withinthe Security Council.

Jan Pronk, Kofi Annan's special representative for Sudan, is equallyculpable, especially in refusing to look at the series of events thathave defined escalating violence in the Tawilla area. Pronk has alsoresponded in wholly inadequate fashion to the numerous credible reportsof massively disproportional military "response" by Khartoum in otherareas of Darfur, and to ongoing violent abuse in the camps for displacedpersons (the Sudan Organization Against Torture [SOAT] has recentlyprovided a number of highly authoritative and detailed reports onabductions, arbitrary arrests, torture, death from torture, and rape byKhartoum's security forces and the Janjaweed in the camps).

Most conspicuously, UN commentary on the violence in the Tawilla areahas consistently failed to recognize the terrible atrocities that arethe context for the violence now unfolding. One example from earlierthis year---one of scores---should suggest why it is entirelyunreasonable to expect restraint in the face of ongoing andunconstrained Janjaweed predations in this area:

"In an attack on 27 February [2004] in the Tawilah [Tawilla] area ofnorthern Darfur, 30 villages were burned to the ground, over 200 peoplekilled and over 200 girls and women raped---some by up to 14 assailantsand in front of their fathers who were later killed. A further 150 womenand 200 children were abducted." (UN Integrated Regional InformationNetworks, March 22, 2004)

Until there is honesty about the nature of human destruction over thepast 22 months of violent conflict in Darfur, it will be all too easyfor the UN to contrive "moral equivalence" in describing the continuingviolence, and thereby avoid the most basic truth about Darfur: theKhartoum regime has no intention of halting the genocide, or disarmingthe Janjaweed (who are not party to the November 9 Abuja SecurityProtocol and act with according impunity, despite a UN Security Council"demand" that Khartoum disarm this brutal force). Currentinsecurity, created by massively disproportional military actions,ensures that humanitarian capacity will remain severely limited.

THE CURRENT HUMANITARIAN SITUATION

The effort to provide food and other essential relief to civilians inDarfur is failing. This is partly obscured by the shameful belatednessof the UN's Darfur Humanitarian Profile No. 8 (due at the beginning ofNovember). Nonetheless, much of the data that will appear in thisbelated document is already available from various other sources. TheUS Agency for International Development reports that:

"From November 1 to November 28, [the UN] World Food Program (WFP)dispatched 20,151 metric tons of food commodities to implementingpartners for distribution to more than 1.1 million conflict-affectedbeneficiaries. WFP's planned food distribution for November was 31,500metric tons for 1.8 million beneficiaries." (US AID "fact sheet,"Darfur---Humanitarian Emergency, December 3, 2004)

Disturbingly, WFP has without justification lowered its target figurefrom 2 million to 1.8 million, even as the number of people in need offood assistance is climbing rapidly throughout Darfur. Indeed, thetotal number of conflict-affected persons in need of humanitarianassistance is approximately 3 million (see below). As long ago as thispast June in the so-called day "90-day Plan of Action," the UN wasprojecting a population in need of food assistance of 2 million peoplefor October. The October 1, 2004 UN Darfur Humanitarian Profile (No. 7)clearly indicated that the "target population" for food in September wasover 2 million (Darfur Humanitarian Profile No. 7, page 15, Chart 8).On what basis other than expediency has the WFP lowered its targetfigure for November?

Moreover, it must be stressed again that the quality of food aid isseriously inadequate even for those beneficiaries who are reached. Arecent study by another part of WFP and the Centers for Disease Controland Prevention ("Emergency Nutrition Assessment of Crisis AffectedPopulations, Darfur Region," based on data collected between September 2and September 20, 2004), reported:

"Of those households with a ration card [troublingly, only 78%---ER]that received a ration in September [2004], more than half did notreceive oil or pulses [leguminous foods] (64.5% and 72.8% respectively).[ ] More than half of households (57%) only received a cereal in thegeneral ration in September." (page 3)

Nor are food supply issues going to diminish any time soon. The headof the International Committee of the Red Cross recently estimated that"around 2-3 million people in Sudan's Darfur region could bedependent on food aid next year [2005] because insecurity has preventedcrop planting" (Reuters, November 30, 2004). This figure does notinclude the refugee population in Chad, and presumes a very conservativenumber for the needy populations in rural areas of Darfur presentlybeyond humanitarian access or assessment. The number in need of foodaid will certainly be much closer to 3 million, and could well exceedthis immense number.

Moreover, there are few signs that security will permit a spring/earlysummer planting season in 2005, ensuring that millions of people who arefood-dependent will continue to be so into 2006.

There are other problems with the humanitarian relief effort in Darfur.The UN Advance Mission in Sudan (UNAMIS), which has such largeoversight and reporting responsibilities for Darfur, has failed tofashion itself into an effective team. It is, according to reports fromdisaffected sources within UNAMIS, a "nightmare of bureaucracy,inefficiency, and lack of direction." There is a lack of moral resolveanimating this ad hoc organization, far too much merely intellectualdebate, and too little hard work.

>From the field in Darfur, another extremely seasoned humanitarianworker reports that there is severe deficiency in the overall quality ofstaff on the ground. While there are of course superb personnel, thereare far too many problems in the skill level and field experience ofmany aid workers, as well as excessive turnover. Moreover, themanagement capacity and "energy level" on the ground is described as"deplorable," and there is concern that in many quarters there isinsufficient capacity to absorb efficiently new revenues and supplies.Infighting between UN agencies is also reliably reported. Clearly thereare severe problems and UNAMIS seems wholly inadequate to provide thenecessary oversight. Again, there are notable exceptions, but theglobal picture of humanitarian personnel, management, and UN operationsis troubling.

Khartoum also continues to interfere with humanitarian operations.Reuters reports today that the regime has made good on its efforts toexpel Shaun Skelton, head of country operations for Oxfam International.Oxfam was singled out for harassment because of its scathing criticismof the entirely worthless UN Security Council Resolution 1574, November19, 2004: "The head of the British charity Oxfam has left the country,days after Sudanese officials ordered him to leave for working under awrong visa" (Reuters, December 12, 2004)

Even Kofi Annan is obliged to note in his December 3, 2004 report tothe Security Council that,

"during the last two weeks [of November], [Khartoum's] process ofissuing visas has slowed down for the nongovernmental organizations[NGOs] compared to previous months. In addition, some Governmentauthorities seem to have hardened their position towards internationalNGOs in allowing them to continue their work unconditionally." (SectionVII, paragraph 28)

THE NUMBER OF DISPLACED PERSONS

The number of displaced persons continues to be severely under-reportedin various quarters. Agence France-Presse reported on November 23, 2004that a senior UN World Food Program official had declared: "By December,there will be two million displaced persons," and that "this estimate ofthe region's torrents of displaced persons was a staggering 300,000people higher than a World Food Program estimate issued just one weekago [November 16, 2004]" (AFP, November 23, 2004).

But even this estimate for the current month does not take account ofrefugees in Chad or the large numbers of people displaced since November23, 2004. In one example, Doctors Without Borders/Medecins SansFrontieres (MSF) reported on December 1, 2004:

"Two thousand civilians were yesterday forced to flee the village ofSaraf Ayat in North Darfur, following the latest in a series of attacksin the region. Many of those caught up in yesterday's [November 30,2004] attack had already been forcibly displaced from their originalhome villages several days." (MSF, Brussels/Khartoum, December 1, 2004)

Though unstated, the circumstances of the MSF dispatch makeunambiguously clear that this was a Janjaweed attack. And again theDecember 6, 2004 account from Amnesty International indicates the flightof 40,000 civilians from the Adwa area north of Nyala, South Darfur (seeabove).

In calculating the total number of displaced persons, it is importantto recognize that this number has been rising for months (since June2004) at an average rate of 150,000 per month (Darfur HumanitarianProfile No. 7 [October] shows a straight-line rise in the graphrepresenting internal displacement [page 6, chart 2]). The number ofinternally displaced persons (IDPs) increased from approximately 1million in June 2004 to 1.6 million at the beginning of October2004---again, an average monthly increase of 150,000. In short, thereare presently, according to these UN data, approximately 2 million IDPs,the very figure suggested by the UN's WHO for December 2004 (seeabove).

But this figure does not include the more than 200,000 people who arerefugees in Chad; nor does it represent displacement within theincreasingly distressed rural populations that are beyond humanitarianaccess or even assessment---populations likely in excess of the 500,000estimated in Darfur Humanitarian Profile No. 6 (September 2004). Thesepopulations have continued to be targeted for destruction anddisplacement by both the Janjaweed and Khartoum's regular militaryforces. The data in aggregate suggest a total displaced population of2.5 million in the greater humanitarian theater. Beyond this, there arelikely another 500,000 in growing need of humanitarian assistance. Thisincludes host families and communities whose food supplies have beenexhausted; increasingly distressed populations in urban areas not partof the camps; and the remaining elements of the rural population beyondhumanitarian reach or access, who may not have been displaced but areunable to produce or acquire food.

DISAGGREGATED MORTALITY ESTIMATES

There are two appendices offered here in support of the conclusionsabout global mortality in Darfur with which this assessment began:Appendix 1 on violent deaths as of October 8, 2004, and Appendix 2 ondeaths from malnutrition and disease.

There have been no recent important additions to the data or reportsbearing on violent mortality. It is, however, important to bear in minda conclusion reached in a key study of violent mortality (The Lancet,October 1, 2004) and recently reiterated by MSF in connection with theJanjaweed attack on Saraf Ayat:

"Mortality studies carried out by MSF show that during the early phasesof the Darfur conflict the pattern of repeated violence and consequentdisplacement was the cause of very high mortality." (MSF,Brussels/Khartoum, December 1, 2004)

Given the high levels of continued violent displacement over the pasttwo months, we must assume that many thousands more have died, inaddition to the figure cited here in Appendix 1. A figure of "over200,000" violent deaths looks increasingly conservative.

Appendix 2 presents the data and analysis indicating that approximately135,000 people had died of disease and malnutrition as of November 16,2004.

The mortality assessment of November 16 also provided data (primarilyfrom the UN's World Health Organization and the two most recent DarfurHumanitarian Profiles) indicating a monthly mortality rate of 30,000(again, full text of this previous mortality assessment is available at Sudan Tribune). Given the continuing severe shortfalls in humanitarianrelief, this monthlymortality rate is clearly rising along with the global CrudeMortality Rate (deaths per day per 10,000 of affected population); thedenominator for the current CMR is certainly also increasing (here thecontinued increase in the number of displaced persons is of particularrelevance).An increasing CMR and a population of more, and moreseverely affected, persons justifies extrapolation of a current monthlymortality rate of approximately 35,000.

The previous mortality analysis by this writer (September 15, 2004)highlighted several important new sources of mortality data. The mostimportant of these was a very extensive study conducted by thedistinguished Coalition for International Justice ("DocumentingAtrocities in Darfur"). On the basis of 1,136 carefully randomizedinterviews, conducted among the Darfuri refugee population in Chad at anumber of camp locations along the border, the Coalition forInternational Justice (CIJ) found that "sixty-one percent [of thoseinterviewed] reported witnessing the killing of a family member."

The total number of refugees in Chad is now greater than 200,000. Ifwe assume that this population of persons displaced from Darfur isrepresentative of many hundreds of thousands of violently displacedpersons within Darfur, then the total number people represented by theCIJ study is over 1.5 million, and may reach to 2 million.

How do we establish the approximate figure for those people violentlydisplaced, either into camps, into towns, within inaccessible ruralareas in Darfur---or into Chad?

In its most recent "Darfur Humanitarian Profile," the UN Office for theCoordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that 1.45 million peoplehave been displaced into accessible camps within Darfur; this figure isbased on food assistance registrations by UN and nongovernmentalhumanitarian organizations ("Darfur Humanitarian Profile," No. 6,September 16, 2004, page 5). The UN report also estimates that an"additional 500,000 conflict-affected persons are in need ofassistance" (page 9), and it is reasonable to assume that most of theseare displaced persons in inaccessible rural areas. (Even a figure of500,000 almost certainly understates the number of displaced persons inrural areas.) Moreover, the UN report does not attempt to assess eitherthe host communities or the size of displaced populations in the threestate capitals because there are still no systematic food registrationsin these large urban areas.

Thus out of a total displaced population in Darfur of over 2 million,we require an estimate of the number of persons who experienced violentdisplacement of the sort that created refugees in Chad. Given theextremely high level of village destruction throughout Darfur, and thetenacity with which these people have sought to cling to their land andlivelihoods, displacement per se is a very likely indicator of violentdisplacement.

Moreover, a recent epidemiological study published in The Lancet offersclear evidence that displacement is overwhelmingly related to violentattacks. In two camps, Zalingei and Murnei, statistically rigorousassessments found that "direct attack on the village" accounted fordisplacement of 92.8% of the Zalingei population and 97.4% of the Murneipopulation (the combined camp populations is approximately 110,000) (TheLancet, October 1, 2004, "Violence and mortality in West Darfur,2003-04").

If we conservatively assume that 80% of the total displaced populationsthat have remained in Darfur were driven to flee by "direct attack onvillages," the number of violently displaced persons is 1.6 million.

This yields a total figure of violent displacement, for Chad andDarfur, of very approximately 1.8 million. The average family size inDarfur is slightly more than five, suggesting that a population of 1.8million represents almost 360,000 families. If randomized interviews bythe Coalition for International Justice (CIJ) find that "sixty-onepercent [of those interviewed] reported witnessing the killing of afamily member," then this yields a mortality figure for violent deathsof over 200,000 human beings.

Caveats and other considerations:

There is some chance that despite randomizing of interviews in Chad,and multiple camp locations at which interviews were conducted, overlapsexist in the "family members" identified as having been seen killed.This is a negligible number if "family" refers to nuclear family.Indeed, the chances of overlap even for members of extended families arequite small, given the diversity of interview locations.

More significant is the fact that those conducting interviews for theCIJ found that interviewees often reported more than one family memberhad been killed, often several more than one. Yet the statisticalderivation offered here presumes that only one family member has beenkilled among the 61% who reported seeing (at least) one family memberkilled.

Secondly, the study cannot take account of the number of families inwhich all members were killed, and who thus had no reporting presence inthe camps where interviews took place. The CIJ study does report that28% of those interviewed "directly witnessed" persons dying from theconsequences of displacement before reaching Chad. These deaths must beconsidered the direct consequence of violence, if not violent deaths perse, and would significantly increase violent mortality totals.

Moreover, the CIJ study indicates that 67% of those interviewed"directly witnessed" the killing of a non-family member." As the rawdata from the CIJ study is soon scheduled for release, it may bepossible to put this extraordinary figure in a statistical context thatis yet more revealing of violent mortality. Given the number camplocations (19), and the randomizing techniques used within the camps---

"refugees were selected using a systematic, random sampling approachdesigned to meet the condition in Chad. Interviewers randomly selecteda sector within a refugee camp and then, from a fixed point within thesector, chose every 10th dwelling unit for interviewing. [ ] One adult[from the dwelling unit] was randomly selected [for interviewing]" (page5)---

---the figure of 67% of refugees "directly witnessing" the death of anon-family member strongly suggests that assumptions made in thisanalysis may lead to significant underestimation.

In light of these various CIJ findings, and data reported in TheLancet, a figure of 200,00 violent deaths over the past 20 months ofconflict seems a conservative estimate.***************************Appendix 2: November 16, 2004: Retrospective Assessment of Deaths fromDisease and Malnutrition

Mortality figures and reports continue to be very badly misrepresentedin news accounts; this is true in particular of the assessment by the UNWorld Health Organization (WHO) study of health-related mortality inDarfur. This misrepresentation has had the extremely unfortunate effectof giving apparent UN authority to a putative total morality figure of"50,000" deaths (and more recently "70,000"). What the WHO study andaccompanying public commentary represented---as explicitly confirmed tothis writer by David Nabarro, chief of emergency operations forWHO---was a figure of more than 50,000 deaths from disease andmalnutrition, from early April 2004 to mid-September 2004, in camps towhich there has been humanitarian access.

The WHO figure did not include violent deaths; it did not representmorality in Chad; and it did not represent mortality in areasinaccessible to humanitarian operations. Most significantly, it did notinclude deaths from disease and malnutrition prior to April 2004 (again,the conflict began in February 2003). In short, the mid-September WHOfigure was of highly limited relevance. Further, as Dr. Nabarroconfirmed to this writer by telephone communication, the WHO figure formonthly mortality should be closer to 10,000 in the "6,000 to 10,000deaths per month" range reported as coming from WHO. Only such a highernumber begins to take adequate account of populations more difficult toassess.

In the two months since the WHO report was published (assuming withNabarro the higher mortality rate), 20,000 people have died, suggestingthat more than 70,000 people have died in accessible areas since April2004.

Mortality in rural areas to which there is no access is best assessedon the basis of the US Agency for International Development projections("Projected Mortality Rates in Darfur, 2004-2005")We may use as a very conservative denominator for these projections thefigure of 500,000 inaccessible persons in need of humanitarianassistance, promulgated by the UN in its September "Darfur HumanitarianProfile" No. 6 (troublingly, no updated figure was estimated in theOctober "Darfur Humanitarian Profile" No. 7). For the past five months,US AID projections indicate an average Crude Mortality Rate of almost 10per day per 10,000 (for a population without humanitarian relief andexperiencing severe food shortages). Over 150 days, assuming an averagedenominator of 500,000, total mortality is approximately 75,000. Thesedeaths would be primarily among very young children, the elderly, andthose made vulnerable from violent trauma.

Still, a figure of 75,000 may be too high for several reasons,primarily the highly developed foraging abilities of these people andthe use (and likely exhaustion) of food reserves. On the other hand,insecurity produced by continuing Janjaweed predations would compromiseboth of these food sources. If we assume (very conservatively) that afigure of 75,000 overstates by 100%, this still leaves a figure of over35,000 deaths from malnutrition and related disease over the past fivemonths in inaccessible areas of Darfur. Together with the figurederiving from the September WHO report and data, this suggests acomposite figure of 105,000 deaths from malnutrition and disease sinceApril 2004.

Still excluded from this figure, however, is the number of deaths fromdisease and malnutrition during the period February 2003 to April 2004.During this period several humanitarian organizations reported highCrude Mortality Rates at various junctures. Many thousands died in thecamps, especially children, though there is no systematic data thatpermits extrapolation of a total figure. If we assume a level of deathfrom disease and malnutrition only one-fifth the current rate estimatedby WHO (for a stronger camp population, and one that has only graduallygrown to its present size), then another 30,000 have died from thesecauses.

Total mortality from disease and malnutrition is thus approximately135,000.

About Me

Jeff Weintraub is a social & political theorist, political sociologist, and democratic socialist who has been teaching most recently at the University of Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr College, and the New School for Social Research, He was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University in 2015-2016 and a Research Associate at the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, Bryn Mawr College.
(Also an Affiliated Professor with the University of Haifa in Israel & an opponent of academic blacklists.)